


1000 Chickens and a Single Man

by Hard_boiled_candy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Banter, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester Use Their Words, Chickens, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Not all the chickens make it, Veterinarian Castiel (Supernatural), Wedding Fluff, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22573621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hard_boiled_candy/pseuds/Hard_boiled_candy
Summary: Dean Winchester possibly has ADD and a hero complex, and it all comes together in an immense cluster of oops when he buys a thousand chickens instead of the single chicken he was supposed to be buying for his brother. Contains a concerned, new-to-town vet, supportive friends and family, Dean being forced to Talk About Things. Modern AU Destiel, not very smutty. Non-con and roofies and queer bashing are mentioned without much detail, Crowley is not a nice vet at all and should be reported.*****Do not read this story if you are vegan or vegetarian or having a soft-hearted day.*****
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37





	1000 Chickens and a Single Man

Over his first cup of coffee, which his coffee-maker had dispensed as he woke, Dean Winchester looked at his tablet and saw an ad in the local on-line buy ‘n’ sell app and thought, hey, cheap chickens. Because his still-meat-eating, but otherwise-granola-granny brother was thinking about adding more chickens to his backyard zoo/farm, and this looked like a good bet as a gift. He followed the link to a website, ignored everything on the page but the place to enter a bid and his phone number and a credit card number, and entered in a bid of $20. He belatedly checked the website to make sure it said ‘https’ and was therefore secure for a credit card transaction, noted with relief that it was, and went about his day.

A normal day included coffee, working out, a shower with a carefully choreographed routine including his teeth and hair and toes and armpits, donning long sleeved tan overalls with “Bobby’s Garage” embroidered on the pocket, and driving to said garage in his black ‘67 Impala, stock but for the tape deck and the air-conditioning, and the decades of love and care the obsessive men of his family had lavished on a car who already had a personality and was probably achieving sentience as the odometer crept upward. 

At the garage he would work nine to twelve hours and come home, nuke dinner or slap something in the Instant Pot, and work another couple of hours around the house until he could drink the single beer he allowed himself each day. He drank more if friends were around. Alone, he drank one. He’d watch TV, sometimes for a couple of hours. Depending on his mood, he’d text his brother, his mom, his former neighbor who was an irascible jackass but also sort of like a spare dad, and his dentist, who was also one of his best friends. Then he’d watch porn on the flat screen he’d put up facing the headboard until he’d made his usual masturbatory mess. Or not. Sometimes he’d fuck himself in the ass with a reasonably large dildo until his eyes glazed over and he could sleep.

That was a normal day.

It would have been a different sort of day if he was dating someone. Dean got obsessive about the people he was dating. Unless you could deal with that little spike in Dean’s personality, you would not last – never mind that he had a sweet temper and never mind his god-like appearance. If he’d been trainable, more people would have tried, but Dean did things his own way and that, with his almost stalker-like behavior, made most sensible folks bail the first time they talked about their concerns to anyone they trusted. It was a small town. He ran through the dating pool pretty fast, and there he was, stuck and still single, with his reputation strewn around the joint in tell-tale tatters.

He’d heard through Garth, his dentist buddy, and seen a photo in the town weekly which confirmed, that ‘a super-hot guy’ had taken over Doc Shurley’s vet clinic after he’d retired and run away to South America (he was actually living in Mexico six months of the year and came home often enough to maintain his residency status, but the rumour persisted.) So Dean knew that the clinic had reopened, which was a good thing, because no one wanted to drive forty miles to the nearest vet any more, especially a total asshole like Dr Ferg Crowley.

Somebody in P-town started calling him Dr. Frog, which he absolutely hated, so it stuck. He kind of did look like a frog. He and Dean had ‘dated’ twice (hooked up more than that) and Dean didn’t exactly hate him because the sex had been way hotter than he expected, but Ferg was a manipulative and bitter man with a grievance against his mother in particular and the world in general that made you wonder if he only got into veterinary medicine to give him an excuse to cut into something alive. Which was a horrible thing to think but plausible as hell once you met the guy. And then there was the whole ‘did he or didn’t he roofie me’ thing. He was still having trouble dealing with that so he did the best thing he could, he completely shoved it away, until he tried to date again.

Dean was vaguely glad Crowley was getting some competition but Garth was no fool; he hadn’t waited for Dean to ask him what the guy looked like. “I haven’t met him but Jo says he’s ‘a super-hot guy’ and she also said something about ‘batting for the other team’.”

He thought about how he was going to meet this new guy in town who was apparently gay if he didn’t have a pet. He had forgotten about the chickens, totally, perfectly and completely. 

It was a little after lunch, which he had skipped, when Dean’s phone vibrated. He didn’t recognize the number, and answered anyway.

“Hey is that Dean Winchester?” the voice blasted, bouncing around between the car he was working on and the concrete floor of the garage. “Well ya won the auction. When you getting them chickens? You got a truck ready?”

“What?” Dean said, his empty stomach lurching. “I bought one chicken. A chicken. A single chicken.”

“Nosirree, you didn’t buy ‘a single’ chicken. Your voice sure sounds funny. You got a thousant chickens for 20 bucks which is the deal of the century and I’m a little steamt but otherwise I’d be out it all, so I guess I’ll take what the good Lord brings me.”

“I can’t take a thousand chickens,” Dean said in mounting horror. He scooted out from under the car and sat up.

“Well then you kin come here and help me destroy ‘em all, I got me the gas but I’ll need help,” the farmer said. “I ain’t paying that jackass Dr. Frog to come destroy ‘em.”

Dean was even more horrified. “Give me your contact details and I’ll get out there as fast as I can.”

The farmer obliged. In the same booming voice he said, “Ya got two days, I only got feed for that long and the foreclosure’s in a week, so, ya been warned.” The farmer hung up, no doubt to deal with some other disaster on the farm he was about to lose.

Dean looked up the vet clinic number. He expected a veterinary technician to answer, or the answering service, not the man whose enormous blue eyes, shown inches from a puppy’s face, had graced the front page of the town weekly.

“Novak Animal Clinic,” a deep voice said.

“Uh, uh, hi, Doc, I got an emergency, a vet emergency,” Dean stammered.

“What kind of animal is it and can you bring it in?” Dr. Novak said.

“Chickens, and that’s the problem,” Dean said in misery. “There’s a thousand of them, and I need a truck, and I have no idea how to do that and I was hoping you’d help me locate one.” The farmer had been quite clear that he had no vehicle he could spare for the operation.

There was a long pause. There was a scratching sound and then the voice came back. “A thousand chickens,” he said thoughtfully. “Okay, time to do some math. You need crates. Six birds in a crate, a thousand into six is say a hundred and sixty-five for round numbers. The crates are thirty-eight by twenty-two by eleven.”  
“Wow,” Dean said. “Whoever you are, you sure don’t fluster easily; I was panicking there.”

“Might I be so bold as to enquire,” Dr. Novak said in that calm, gentle, deep voice, “As to how you became the owner of a thousand chickens?”

“I, uh, I made a bid thinking I was getting a chicken.”

Novak h’mmed to himself. “Just one chicken.”

“For my brother,” Dean clarified. “I got a thousand chickens for twenty bucks!”

“You’ll be telling the grandchildren,” Dr. Novak said indulgently. Dean felt his cheeks and neck get hot.

“I’ll need a spouse before I get any of those,” Dean said. He realized that he was fishing for Dr. Novak’s marital status, and didn’t want to sound like it, so he pushed the conversation back to his precipitous entrance into the exciting world of poultry management. “How do I get the crates? Where do I take the chickens? Can they be rescued?” Dean asked.

He was so startled, he almost squawked like a chicken. Almost, but not quite. “Rescued? You want to rescue a thousand chickens?” 

“He said I can go help him kill them with gas if I don’t feel like paying for a truck; it will be a lot cheaper and I’ll have learned my lesson.”

“So after that you had to rescue them. He pushed your hero button and now you are going to throw yourself into the impossible task of rescuing a thousand chickens. Tell me you at least have feed.”

“For two days.”

Novak said something under his breath that sounded like ‘obojay’ to Dean and it was obviously foreign cursing; he had no response to this. Part of him was wishing he could put the phone down and run away but the concept of a pile of gasping, dying chickens was freaking him out.

“Have you ever caught chickens?”

No, he had not. “Dr. Novak, I have petted my brother’s chickens, and I’ve caught more KFC than is good for me, but that is the sum total of my knowledge about chickens .”

“Then get on the phone to your brother, who actually keeps chickens, and tell _him_ to get on the phone and round up every chicken crate he can, and the biggest truck to transport them. If he’s serious about chickens he’ll know people.”

There was a pause.

“I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name already,” Dr. Novak said.

Dean felt acutely embarrassed. He’d just opened up on this guy and dumped on him without the courtesy of introducing himself. He could feel his father’s ghostly slaps against the back of his head. “Dean Winchester,” Dean said.

“Well, Dean, I will be your vet for the duration of the transfer, and I’ll only charge you for every chicken that dies.”

“What?”

“Dean, inexperienced people transporting chickens means dead chickens. Please do not mistake your good-hearted gesture for a sensible course of action.”

“I’m going to save them,” Dean said mulishly.

“You’ll only save some of them, and most of the people who take them will be lying when they say they want them for pets, so most of them are going to get eaten, one way or another,” the vet said implacably.

Screw you! was what Dean wanted to say. Instead, he said, “Thank you very much for volunteering your time and being honest with me and letting me know how big a chicken crate is. I’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks Doc.”

“Goodbye,” Dr. Novak said in his sexy, grave voice. 

He hung up and thought, _what just happened_.

“I’m going to save every goddamned chicken that I can,” Dean said, after he hung up the phone. He blew out a big sigh, and called his brother.

His brother was less than supportive at first. “What the hell, Dean?” he said, astonished at Dean’s ability to entangle himself in other people’s labor-intensive bullshit with no obvious effort. “Why not just walk away from the $20? I mean, we’re talking a seriously lunatic idea here.”

Dean said with determination, “I’ve made a mistake but I’m going to set it right. Can you help me locate crates for transportation?”

“I have two metal ones and two plastic ones, but I got a deal on a carton of ten cardboard ones that are good for the vet.”

“But the same size, so they stack?” Dean asked.

Sam laughed in disbelief. “Listen to you. Now, another thing you have to know is that not just any trucking company will move chickens, because chickens, Dean – “

“Yeah Sam, I get it, I really do. They poop.”

“They poop a lot, Dean. Like, more than seems possible, and a fuckton more often than necessary, in my opinion.” Sam hardly ever swore, but he had to shovel chicken shit once a week or it got too gross for words in his little backyard hobby farm/zoo, which he’d thought would be fun for the kids, and just meant tons of dirty physical work for him and Eileen. But Eileen loved the goddamned chickens, and so did the kids, and, hey! eggs!

Garth had taught Dean the expression, “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” but this time Dean had a circus of a thousand chickens and every last one of them was his.

“So how many crates, total?”

“Fourteen altogether.”

“Can I ask why it is that when you only got seven chickens, you got fourteen crates?” Dean asked. He was beginning to see that the real problem with chickens was that he was going to go broke getting rid of them. Maybe he should shove them in a big box and drive them to a dog food factory, since the vet had hinted that might be the outcome no matter what he did. He stiffened his spine and as his brother spluttered, he said, “I’m just being a dick, I don’t want to talk about that, I’m glad you have some crates. Can I ask you to find me someone willing to rent a truck to move the chickens? You have a much better idea of what’s needed - and I’ll need 165 crates.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. He was starting to get into it. “That sounds about right. How’d you find that out?”

“I called the new vet in town.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, he was really helpful, and very honest about me possibly having some kind of a recently discovered brain disease that makes me compelled to rescue chickens.” Dean sounded resigned. “Well, if you could find a truck, like for tomorrow, that would be great. I’m not asking you to drive it, or to chase chickens, or haul crates around. Just…. If you could find a truck that would be awesome.”

“Dean,” Bobby said. He’d been listening in, obviously; Dean hadn’t even noticed him.

“Gotta go,” Dean said, and felt heat in his chest. He turned around and Bobby was looking at him like he’d tracked dog dirt into the house.

“What’s going on, boy?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, boss,” Dean said uneasily. “I gotta take the rest of the afternoon off. And possibly tomorrow.”

“Lemme get this straight. For some chickens?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. He knew anything he said would just make things worse. He could feel the flush in his neck and his ears and he felt like his eyes were on fire, but he kept his stupid mouth shut.

“You need to take the afternoon off for some chickens.”

Dean cut to the chase. “I’ll work Sunday. And whatever extra time is needed, within the week.”

“You better,” and with that, the old man turned around and went back into the office. He deliberately stood on the part of the half-step up that squeaked like a mouse saying ‘Idjit!’ as he went by, and Dean winced to himself.

Dean cleaned up the car he was working on and put his tools away. He left his overalls on and thought about what the hell he was going to do.

Dr. Castiel Novak could not get the conversation he’d had with Dean Winchester out of his thoughts. To take on rescuing so many chickens struck him as being absolutely ludicrous, and yet he was also impressed by the gallant resolve he’d heard in the other man’s voice, as if he knew and was facing how hard it was going to be with a realistic frame of mind.

He got Sue, his new technician / receptionist set up with her own keys, and smiled as she exclaimed over the cute name tag he’d already prepped for her. “I hope you’re okay with being left alone, I need to go out for a while.” He extracted Dean’s phone number from the clinic phone system and called him.

Despairing of sounding casual, as he saw Novak Clinic come up on his phone, Dean opted for being brief. “‘Lo,” he said.

“Hi, it’s Dr. Novak calling,” Castiel said, and then stopped. His mind went blank. His inner snark-beast whispered, ‘Is it him or the chickens you’re so concerned about?’ Perhaps he was just flustered because Dean’s voice was so warm and resonant.

“I’m driving out to see the chickens now,” Dean said, determined to sound like a man with a plan. “My brother’s run down a dozen crates and a truck, and I’m just trying to think of how I get them transferred to another farm, or to people who want backyard chickens.”

“You need to get the word out as to how many and what breed and what condition they’re in as fast as you can. Did you want me to come along with you?”

“What? Uh,” and Dean mentally spun out into awkward and complicated places.

“I suppose that’s me being unduly anxious,” Castiel said.

“No, not at all,” Dean said, and the relief was crystal clear. “I was actually thinking of asking you to take a look at them, but not this instant – at your convenience.”

“I cleared my schedule,” Castiel said. 

“I don’t even know if they’re healthy,” Dean said, with a little desperation in his voice. “I assumed so, but I’ll have more confidence once a professional takes a look.” He gave Castiel the address.

“You’ll be passing the best burger joint in town on the way, if you’re hungry.” Dean said.

“Rocky’s? I know it,” Castiel said with a smile in his voice. “I’ll see you shortly.” Castiel promptly did something foolish; he looked up Dean Winchester on social media. The Facebook account was locked but Instagram was loaded with dimple-cheeked nephews; a chicken coop; a brother and sister-in-law who were gorgeous and oh so in love, and Dean himself, who was, in the telling slang expression, ‘a snack’, whether he was showing off his car or pointing to the garage he’d just cleaned out. Castiel scrolled back. There were no pictures of a significant other more recent than two years ago, a woman with pointy cheeks and red hair.

“Huh,” he said aloud. His new assistant looked over his shoulder and said, “What’s up with Dean?”

“You know Dean?”

“Everybody knows Dean,” she smirked. 

“What?” Castiel said faintly. 

“He’s the town character,” Sue said.

“Oh,” Castiel said. “He sounds very nice on the phone.”

“Not the town drunk, the town character, and you should see him in real life!” Sue said, in a rather vulgar tone. 

Castiel kept his voice mild. “I understand he’s quite good looking.”

“A sweet man,” Sue said reminiscently, and at Castiel’s startled expression, she expanded on this. “I was an aide in his grade 2 class. He was a sweet boy, friendly and curious and polite, and he’s a sweet man now. He’s just a little… intense I guess is the word. He’s also the only person I know who’s out and bisexual and not a woman.”

Castiel blinked, but didn’t respond to this revelation, going back to an earlier point. “And this intensity would make him want to rescue chickens?”

“Lord knows what that man will do next – but rescuing chickens does seem like a Dean thing to do.”

“A thousand of them, though.”

Her eyes widened. “Seriously? He’s gonna need crates,” Sue said.

“A lot of crates,” Castiel said.

He drove to the address he’d been given, and there was the Impala Sue had told him was basically Dean in machine form. He waved and walked toward where Dean was having an animated conversation with the farmer.

The farmer broke off to stare at him. “Aren’t you the new vet in town?”

“Castiel Novak,” Castiel said. 

“Perry Neustadt,” the man said. “I tolt him he was crazy to take on a thousand chickens ‘less he had a working farm, but Dean here’s not having any. I just hate to see anything go to waste and the local lot won’t take ‘em cause of stuff I don’t want to get into.”  
“I assume you’re Dean Winchester,” Castiel said. In his life he’d never been more terrified to shake a man’s hand; it appeared that the muddy hazel eyes of the Instagram selfies were in real life a bright and mesmerizing green, and experiencing their true color in natural light had briefly rendered him speechless. Dean’s hand was warm and his shake was firm and Castiel was tempted to just keep pulling on his hand until his intentions were revealed, but he managed a tight smile instead, and let go before he turned creepy. 

It was all pretty much as Dean had said on the phone. He and Perry negotiated a price for a couple of poultry crooks, long yellow hooks to allow them to grab a chicken without having to run around chasing it. Sam texted Dean and said he had a truck lined up and a driver, all for the next day. Now they needed a place to transfer the chickens.

“What do you mean?” Dean asked.

“Well, you need someplace where you can keep the chickens while you’re waiting for people to pick them up. Otherwise they freak out and get respiratory distress and die.”

“You’re kidding.”

Castiel, who was overhearing Sam’s side of the conversation with no difficulty, smiled at Dean as he nodded and put it on speaker.

“No, he’s not,” Castiel said, with the same tight smile.

“Is that the vet?” Sam asked. “Dr. Novak?”

“Yeah, and I presume you’re Sam Winchester,” Castiel said. “I am probably going to regret this, but I hereby volunteer to put them in my backyard as a staging area.”

“Holy shit,” Dean said blankly. His expression, as he shot looks at Castiel, bounced between awestruck, grateful and terrified.

“What? Are you zoned for that many chickens?” Sam asked.

The situation was farcical, but if he got to date Dean at the end of it, it would be worth every ghastly noseful of chicken stench until it was all cleaned up. “God, no, but there’s a high, tight fence, and hopefully my recent appointment to the County Board of Health will prevent me from getting anything but an earful from my neighbors – and whatever the outcome, the County Supervisor will probably put me on blast, as the kids say, but if they’re all gone within a couple of days, it’ll be fine.” Castiel splayed a hand at the flock of chickens. “They’re White Leghorns. The most popular egg-laying chicken in the world. They’ve got about two more years of egg-laying in them and then they can live as pets for another four to six after that. I need to get some mobile coops and then we are good to go.”

“Sam knows where to rent some. These guys really smell.” Dean was not impressed.

Castiel narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, and though the gesture was childlike, Dean felt the weight of the other man’s experience and intelligence fall on him; his response was a lubricious smirk; anything rather than look abashed. Castiel quirked an eyebrow, and then said, for Perry’s benefit as well as Dean’s, “Let’s both be really happy they’re healthy and Perry has been feeding them properly.” Castiel had seen, too often for his taste, what happens to farm families with lots of livestock and not much money for feed. 

Eileen had been busy on social media, apparently, and Dean’s phone blew up with volunteers wanting to take the chickens. They went back to the vet clinic. Sue had gone home and locked up perfectly, which made Castiel happy, because there were fifteen items on the checklist for locking the office and she hadn’t skipped any. 

Castiel set up an Excel spreadsheet to ensure they had enough people wanting them and contact information ‘if people were naughty enough to bail on those poor desperate, desperate chickens’, and as soon as Castiel said that, Dean was doubled over in the clinic waiting room. The two of them laughed until they were both on the floor. They couldn’t look at each other. Red-faced and gasping, they’d start to quieten and then one of them would say, very quietly, “Bock bock.” “Poor, poor, desperate chickens.”

“We have to save some energy for later,” Dean said, when they finally settled.

Castiel groaned, “I think I tore a muscle.”

“Doc, are you telling me that your laughing muscles are out of shape?” Dean said impishly.

“Oh, I don’t think I need to worry about that for much longer,” Castiel replied.

The next eight hours passed in a haze of extreme and smelly effort, but Sam, because he was the best brother in the entire universe, had found, among his small cohort of young parent buddies, a guy willing to loan out a proper respirator that killed the worst of the smell, and after that. Dean was okay with the whole ordeal, jumping completely on board. He and three teenaged boys with 4H caught, moved, and handed over a thousand chickens to about sixty people, less the number of them that got sick and died along the way. People showed up out of nowhere, grabbed chickens, paid a donation (mostly), and left. Kids from other 4H clubs, backyard chicken rescue enthusiasts, public schools and daycares, all arrived and got their chickens. If people didn’t pay, Dean said nothing. Some people were hungry. They were laying chickens but they’d go in a stewpot just fine. And he knew for a fact some of these chickens were going to be dog food, but he’d made a choice and now he had to live with the fact that he was an idiot who never checked the fine print. He was going through life trying to deal like an adult with shit he’d done like a child.

He and Castiel texted each other all day. Despite everything, he smiled each time he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He didn’t know Castiel was smiling too, but he could feel it, in the warm encouragement of his messages.

The radio station, and a stringer for the closest TV station gave them some publicity, and that took care of the hundred or so that were left; by six o’clock, to Dean’s intense relief, it was over.

Castiel was at work while Dean handed over the last of the chickens - he’d volunteered his yard, not his time. The woman who loaned the mobile coops to Castiel came back for them and Dean helped her get everything into the truck, with help from the boys.

Dean was filthy and wanting a shower so bad he could cry, but as the respirator came off he said to himself that at least his nose was still working. He said goodbye to the teens - they were good kids, funny and hardworking and modest - or tried to. One hung back (the other two took off on a dirtbike) and wanted to talk to him about gayness while he waited for his sister to pick him up, and Dean scowled at him and said, “Just because I’m the only out bisexual man around here doesn’t mean I’m the right person to talk to about anything! I have no training! How do you know I’m not a predator?”

“My mom told me to talk to you. If she doesn’t think you’re a predator you probably aren’t. Don’t you get queer bashed?”

Dean emitted a self-mocking groan and smoothed his hand over his mouth. “Sure, jump right in after I tell you I’m not comfortable. Well, I guess we can’t disappoint your mother, right?” The kid had the grace to look embarrassed. 

Dean sighed. “A couple of times, yeah. It’s not like I deserve it, I just try not to take it personally, it’s someone else’s rage about life crap I don’t know about and I just happen to be there.”

“So your advice is to put up with it?”

“No way! I put those two fuckers on the ground, and then walked away, but my fucking asshole dad taught me Marine combat techniques and you don’t have that advantage. Maybe pepper spray? The girlier you present the more you get it, unless you’re trans, and then you get it no matter what.”

Now the kid looked miserable. “Do you have any other advice?” 

“What? No! I’m the last person to give advice to anyone! Be free and happy! There’s an old saying, I was told it was Spanish, ‘Take what you want and pay for it!’” and I’m living proof of that, I got the best deal on chickens in history and got totally hosed anyway.”

He seemed surprised. “There were hundreds of dollars of donations!”

“Which will disappear into the truck rental, and the vet bills, and I should pay Perry for the feed ‘cause he’s out of pocket, and that shit’s thirty-five bucks a sack,” Dean said ruefully. “I don’t understand how chicken can be cheap on my plate and murder to raise.”

“Ha ha, welcome to farm life,” the kid said. 

“Don’t let anyone take pictures,” Dean said abruptly. “Don’t send anyone pictures. Pictures move around. People you love will lie to you, and if you’re under age, it can make trouble for other people, not just you. You asked for advice, that’s mine. I’ve got more if you want.”

“Sure,” the kid said.

“Don’t date anybody more than a couple of years older than you. You’re more likely to get manipulated by an older partner. Don’t go anywhere with anyone alone in a car. If some guy shows you that he’s mean and hurtful, believe him. Walk away, no matter how much fun his dick is to ride. Educate yourself about gay culture, but don’t watch porn all day, real life’s not much like that. Always use a condom, don’t skimp on the lube…. I dunno what else to say.”

The kid’s sister showed up. He waved once from the car and Dean half-heartedly waved back. He was trying to think how to keep the chicken smell out Baby’s upholstery when Castiel pulled up.

“How’d it go?”

“Don’t come near me, I gotta go home and shower,” Dean said.

There was that little frown again. “Dean, come on in and take a shower, I have sweats and a T for you to change into. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

Dean dithered for two seconds.

“I made dinner, there’s pot roast in the slow cooker,” Castiel said invitingly.

“Done,” Dean said.

Then he stood like a stooge in doorway. “I’m going to rain down bits of crap all over your house.”

“Okay,” Castiel said. “I”ll get a trash bag and you can change.”

He looked the other way as Dean stripped down to his underwear and trotted off to the bathroom, and got the sweat and chicken crud off himself. Dean heard Castiel’s voice through the door letting him know that his change of clothes was outside.

Damp and clean, he emerged, and sat at the kitchen table at Castiel’s gesture of invitation, while he dished out pot roast and vegetables. Dean tried to make a thank you speech and Castiel snickered into his hand and said, “Shush, eat.”

“Lemme at least do the dishes,” Dean said. 

“Fine, load the dishwasher. I’ll just rearrange everything before I run it anyway,” Castiel said.

“How are you still single,” Dean muttered, and Castiel laughed again.

“I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but you spent hours on this; what do I owe you?” Dean said. He sounded flat.

“For sheer entertainment value, it was worth every penny of my opportunity cost,” Castiel said, like a tax accountant trying to make a joke. “Are you dating anyone?”

Dean’s freckles disappeared into a sea of shining pink. “No.”

“Would you like to go out with me?”

“Are you crazy? I’m the man who bought a thousand chickens without noticing! Why the hell would you want to date me!”

“You’re the man who rescued a thousand chickens, Dean!” Castiel said, with sincere appreciation. Dean wasn’t impressed with himself and muttered, “Less the ones who died.”

“But you tried, and you succeeded, for the most part, and you marshalled an army of friends and neighbors to help you deal with it.

“I had nothing to do with that, Eileen did everything including the graphic design and I don’t want anyone to forget that,” Dean said furiously, and Castiel outraged him by another soft laugh. It was very gentle, not a mean laugh at all, more like an ‘aren’t you wonderful’ laugh. Castiel continued, “Anybody as kind-hearted as you needs a total bastard like me in his life.”

“You are not a total bastard! You’re –” Dean shut up. Castiel was grinning again. “If you were a total bastard you wouldn’t have donated your time.”

“Well, donate yours, and join me for dinner on Friday,” Castiel said persuasively.

“Okay. But I warned you.”

Castiel felt as if his smiling muscles were working harder than they had in years. He probably looked like an idiot. His brother always said that his most genuine smile made him look like a small child with either a mental disability or recent dental medication. “You’re okay with the steakhouse off Route 40?” Castiel said.

Dean smiled and said, “Yes.” Then he loaded the dishwasher and mopped up the counter and put away the leftovers and collapsed on the sofa.

They talked for hours; Dean fell asleep on the sofa like he belonged there. Castiel watched him do it. He got a pillow under his head and threw a sheet over him – it was too hot for anything else – and went to bed, his mind just whirling.

Dean crept into his bed about an hour before dawn and what happened next was brief and breathtaking. Dean said, “You okay with this?” Which wasn’t very specific. When you’re talking about sex, it’s best to be clear about consent, but Castiel suspected it was as much as he was going to get by way of discussion. He soon learned that getting Dean to talk while horizontal was a rare occurrence at best. As he summarized the occasion to himself afterward, he woke up horny and didn’t stay that way long. Dean appeared to enjoy himself.

Dean stayed for breakfast, and he pretty much never left. 

“It’s sickening,” Eileen said. Two months into dating (really living with, but that was not being publicly announced) Dean, Castiel had acquired something he had not expected, in-laws, of sorts, and nephews. The boys (John, known as Jack) and Adam, known as ‘Adam, no!’, were so adorable, observant and loving and funny, that he felt honored to be brought into their lives as a guest, who was growing into being a relative. It felt weird, and then it felt right. 

“What’s sickening?” Castiel said, facing her.

“You two. You look at each other so much.” She widened her eyes and tipped her head to one side, bird-like.

“It’s safe to look at him,” Castiel said. People teased them because they were jealous. Something was going on under the surface with them, something between them that wasn’t ordinary or even necessarily good, or calm. 

“He’s damn good-looking, but my Sam is hotter,” Eileen said smugly.

Castiel grinned. “I’m glad we can disagree,” he said.

When they’d been dating three months, he mentioned to Dean that his nearest colleague, Doctor Crowley, was on the list for a continuing education seminar, which was also a chance for the drug companies to round up all the decision makers, and ply them with various marginally legal incentives to prescribe their highest margin veterinary medicines. 

Dean looked very weird and locked himself in the bathroom for a while. Dean didn’t lock the bathroom door because there was only one in the house and Castiel might need it and sure it could be embarrassing but if he was bleeding and needed first aid who cared, right. 

Castiel rattled the door handle once and then pounced as he exited.

“Yeah,” Dean said in a bleached little voice. “If you’re going to see Crowley I kinda need to warn you.”

“You told me you were lovers and he was an asshole to you.”

“Yeah that’s the teens and up version. It’s more nasty than that. And so is he.”

Dean warned him that Crowley was likely to do everything possible to make him feel shitty, that Dean had lied to him or withheld something, just to piss him off or hurt him and through him, Dean.

“Why would he do that?” Castiel said.

“Because, my honeybee of sunshine -” Dean said, and the pet name had a tiny edge, “He’s a bitter, evil, tortured, vengeful guy who always believes he’s the wronged party. So you need to know exactly what happened.”

It took about fifteen minutes for Dean to run through everything he remembered. Castiel said, when it was over, in a carefully neutral tone of voice, “But it sounds like he assaulted you. And possibly drugged you.”

“I know he did, but sometimes you have to walk away,” Dean said. He never talked for that long. It had been really hard to listen to, and hardest of all for Castiel was killing the desire in his ribcage to ask why on earth Dean would have gone back more than once for sex with this maniac.

“Parts of it were really fun. And he understood certain things about me, stuff on a kind of basic level, when you don’t talk.”

“Right.”

He kept drawing his breath to speak, to comment, to criticize, to probe, to interrogate, to assume, to other. The hardest thing was leaning into Dean with silence rather than criticism. He had to accept how Dean was, broken to himself, but consistently better, more noble, to others. He was an extreme sort of person and he drew extreme people into his life, and if Castiel wanted the sweetness, the goodness that was in his heart and daily behavior, he’d have to deal with the weirdness – like the chickens. He already loved Dean so much that he had to guard against staring off into space, thinking of little things, turning them over in his memories like treasures. So he didn’t say anything. 

There was something about Dean, an imperviousness, that was a clue to a hypersensitivity to criticism. He’d sense that a comment was coming and leave, or change the subject, or get frisky, or take a shower, or run the water in the sink. If Castiel was even thinking about talking about something emotional Dean would sense it and find some way to stand the moment on its head. He was so adept at it that if he had not known how sweet Dean was already, he’d have thought he was the biggest asshole who ever sucked in a breath to derail what you were about to say by talking about interspecies sex between Chewbacca and Han, at which point Castiel would be grimacing and trying not to laugh. Dean was very good at it. It was the kind of good that spoke of long practice and being shit-scared of criticism.

Dean was trying really hard to be good, to be worthy, and something was going to break.

Castiel thought that he could pick the perfect length to snap things off.

Dean had been more or less living with Castiel for four months. They had never said anything about love to each other and some days hardly spoke except regarding their household. The sex was still spectacular, and frequent enough to make certain parts of their bodies, like their pubic bones and knees, continuously sore.

Castiel took his qualms out and shared them with the class.

“Dean, can I ask you a personal question about our relationship?”

“Do you need my waist and thigh measurements for sissy panties?” Dean quipped.

“Nope, you gave them to me already,” Castiel said, which wasn’t true. “It’s about you living here.”

“I can move out,” Dean said instantly.

“No,” Castiel said, “I really don’t want that.”

“Okay.” He had a stubborn look on his face already.

“Do you see us as married after we’ve lived together a while?”

Dean fell apart in front of Castiel. His expression of utter surprise, almost horror, lasted only a fraction of a second, before he mastered himself. “I never thought about it.”

“Okay,” Castiel said, as if it was. “So in your mind we’re something not serious, and temporary.”

Dean’s voice became low and level. “I haven’t thought about it. You’re right, I’m not really looking all that far ahead.”

“Do you want to?” Castiel said. He sighed. His tone was wrong, he sounded sharper than he meant to.

“I’m not that good at thinking ahead,” Dean said. “When I make plans they don’t go all that well, and I’ve had to learn how to improvise.” 

Speaking slowly, with a lot of pauses that helped him keep his cool, he filled Cas in on his childhood, in more detail than previously. Dean had roughly outlined his role in raising his brother, always on the edge of losing custody, but with a solid core of family friends who provided shelter and jobs and cars, the daily practical stuff you need to get by, when the chips are down. He didn’t need to go to them much, but Bobby and Ellen and Rufus and Missouri had prevented Dean and Sam from being split up. He talked about how they became his family, how much it meant to him when he could return the favor and help them with anything.

Then Sam had married Eileen, and he was tetherless. He’d always been a little wild. The brothers fought, always away from Sam’s growing family.

Sam had the gravity, as a family man, to be the brother lecturing now, and Dean’s resentment of getting shit from a man he’d diapered, and his horror of what he was turning into, as he got nostalgic about the days Sammy worshipped him, formed the other half of the argument, and they came to physical blows more than once.

The second time they put their dukes up, Eileen caught them, but their first clue was when she appeared out of nowhere and began to strike her husband in the chest and face, while he looked down on her in stupefaction, his hands in fists at his sides. He began to block her, and she stepped back.

“What the fuck is wrong with you two?” she yelled. “Stop it this minute.”

Dean described it all so he felt like he was there. Cas sighed.

“Am I boring you?” Dean said. His tone was mild but his eyebrows were angry.

“Anything but!” Cas exclaimed. “You know I can’t help but feel for you in your situation.”

“I’m not trying to charm you with my troubles,” Dean said, possibly with a skunkier tone than he intended. Cas decided not to engage him on that, and said, softly, “You’re giving me context.”

After a moment during which Dean devoured Cas with his eyes, he looked down. “I need someone to be with who can deal with me being kind of impulsive, and occasionally expensive,” Dean said.

“I need someone who loves me so continuously that I start to feel worthy of it,” Cas said. “Dean, I’m a bottomless hole. I need love and affirmation so much I’m completely helpless when it shows up.”

Dean shifted his gaze away even further away and made a little frown. “What, are you saying that’s me?”

Cas took a breath. “Nobody has ever come anywhere close to loving me like you do. It doesn’t matter if you never say the words. It’s kind of why I wasn’t expecting you to be interested in marriage; I think you actually have to say something about that in traditional marriage vows.”

Dean’s smile was tight. “You’re just busting my balls. Do you want me to say it?”

Cas laughed aloud. “This is just a test!” he said, still laughing. “No, of course not. You don’t have to. You don’t need to say it. Not if you don’t feel it. You embody it, that’s all. The way you hold me, kiss me, pass me pepper, bring me coffee, disagree with me, throw popcorn at me, throw your arm around me – “

“Hey, wait a minute,” Dean complained, “That’s a song on the radio.”

“I care about what happens next,” Cas said, serious now. “I don’t want you to move out. I understand that if I talk about marriage you’ll change the subject, so I won’t bring it up. Is that okay with you?”  
For a few seconds Dean seemed too emotional to speak. When he did speak, his voice was hoarse. “I understand.”

“Not what I asked, Dean.” 

“I understand that if I complain about the best thing that ever happened to me I’ll probably get what I deserve,” Dean said fatalistically.

“Still not what I asked, Dean. Do you want me to repeat –”

“No. Please don’t repeat the question. I have one of my own. Will you marry me?”

Cas gasped, and then said, “Yes, Dean, of course.”

Dean said, “I really love you a lot, you know.”

“Me too, Dean. Next question. Long engagement or short?”

“I want us to secretly get married.”

Cas was justifiably alarmed. “What?”

“So’s I can prank my brother.”

Cas’s voice was soothing and conciliatory. “Buying a thousand chickens for him by accident was enough pranking for one year, maybe.”

“I didn’t mean that as a prank,” Dean said, offended.

Cas tried to understand the logic of agreeing to a secret marriage. “If you get married and your brother doesn’t get to stand up with you, he will maim you, and Eileen and the kids will finish you off with plastic forks, and they’ll post the pics on Instagram, and I’ll collect your life insurance, and be extremely sad.”

Dean knew that every word of this was as true as the intention behind it, however exaggerated in form. “So, no marrying in secret.” 

It was all Cas could do not to slap his own forehead into hamburger, but he restrained himself and forced himself to breathe. “We can get married fast, if all you need is a civil marriage.”

“It’s all stupid amounts of money,” Dean said.

“We don’t need to get married at all. I agreed, but we can keep our options open.”

“Do I get to tell people we’re engaged?”

“Not unless we’ve set a date,” Cas warned. “That’s the next thing people ask.”

“How about, ‘As soon as possible,’?” Dean suggested.

The kissing went on for quite a while. Cas said, after he got enough air in himself to speak without panting, “This conversation has been sort of all over the place.”

“You want me to check in about my feelings.”

“Oh, this has been a check in of unusual size and duration, Dean,” Cas said. “I asked you about your intentions and prompted a marriage proposal, after a few side quests and ratholes.”

“Not ratholes, chicken coops,” Dean said. He ran the tip of his tongue over an inch of the top of Cas’s left ear, and Cas trembled down to his socks.

“Those too,” Cas managed. 

“Can we have matching tuxes?” Dean said.

“What part of the food budget do you want to sacrifice for tux rental, and how much weight do you want to rearrange before we get measured for said tuxes?” Cas replied. “The way I see it, you’re going to want to spend more money on the reception than on the wedding.”

“We’d look cute in matching tuxes,” Dean said.

“Or dresses. Either way we’d look fine,” Cas said. “We could go for matching tuxes with flower crowns, go for a kind of trad-masc hybrid look.”

“––And now you bust my balls, yet again,” Dean complained.

“You would look awesome,” Cas promised.

“You need to shut your mouth,” Dean growled.

“We could wear chicken costumes,” Cas said.

Dean kissed him quiet. Then, fixing Cas with a warning glance, he called his brother.

“Hey Sam,” he said. After a moment, he said, “Sure, we’re still good for Sunday. Look, me ‘n Cas are getting hitched.”

Sam’s responding shout nearly blew out the speaker on Dean’s phone.

“You okay with us wearing chicken costumes? I mean, how we met was so romantic.”

“Sam! Sam!” Cas yelled. “I think he may be serious.”

Dean hit the speaker button. Sam was yelling, “Jesus, Dean, can’t you just get matching tuxes?”

Dean winked at Cas.

“Sure, but he won’t go for it unless we wear flower crowns,” Dean said apologetically.

“He lies, he lies!” Cas groaned. Dean tittered.

“Yeah, I kinda figured that,” Sam said. “Is it true though? You two are getting married?”

Cas said, “A man who thinks it’s normal to rescue a thousand chickens is a man to cherish.”

“Who asked who?” Sam asked, with piercing curiosity.

Dean, stricken, looked at Cas, who smirked and made the ‘lip=zipped’ sign.

“Hard to say. It all happened in the context of a discussion,” Dean said. 

Sam repeated it, slowly, like a tourist afraid that he’s saying something really rude in a foreign language. “It all happened in the context of a discussion. Cas,” Sam added, sounding helpless. His voice sharpened and he said, “Who proposed?”

“I started a discussion about our current living arrangements,” Cas said. 

“He asked me if I could imagine us married at some point,” Dean said.

“Oh, so the flash and smoke I saw from your end of town was you,” Sam said, with what Cas considered to be witheringly fast response time.

“Not funny, Sam,” Dean said. “And then he spouted poetry at me, that ‘hold me kiss me’ song.”

“Why are you refusing to tell me?” Sam asked, puzzled.

“Well, Sam, I can’t really say. We kind of did it together,” Dean said proudly. “Like we’re kinda hoping to do most things in life from now on.”

“Cas, I hope you understand what you’re doing,” Sam said warningly.

“Sam, aren’t you happy for me?”

“Of course, but I’m worried that Cas doesn’t really grasp...”

“Shaddap, Sammy,” Cas said, doing such a great impression of Dean that both the brothers gasped.

Cas and Dean did not, in fact, wear flower crowns. They choreographed a piece to go with the ‘hold me kiss me’ song and, wearing matching blue tuxes with black sequinned lapels, they rolled it out at their wedding as their first dance. They danced part of it like a sword dance – with poultry crooks. The kids screamed in amusement and the pictures were, as Dean said afterward, “Simply epic.”

**Author's Note:**

> There was a news item a few months back about how a guy inadvertently bought a large number of chickens through an auction, and I thought, "Man, that sounds like something Dean would do!". Much research about chicken husbandry! 
> 
> Definitely closer to becoming a vegetarian now than I was when I started this story. 
> 
> The 'hold me kiss me' song isn't real, but it will be when I finish writing it.


End file.
